Long Beach to Host Annual Louisiana Music and Cultural Festival

By John Roos

Does progress necessarily mean turning your back on tradition?

It’s a timely question, and purists and progressives often argue over how to keep traditional music genres alive and well. I believe the key to moving forward is to honor those forebears by creating original music that stretches, yet still fits within, the traditional framework. This delicate balancing act will be put to the test this weekend at the 2018 Long Beach Bayou Festival, the annual celebration of the culture, food, and Cajun and zydeco music from the prairies of Southwest Louisiana. (For complete schedule of bands and other details, go to: www.longbeachbayou.com).

One zydeco act to pay particular attention to this weekend is Jeffery Broussard & the Creole Cowboys.

The 51-year-old Broussard has deep roots in Creole culture and the traditional zydeco world. The youngest of 11 children, the self-taught accordionist/fiddler/vocalist who hails from Lafayette, LA actually started on the drums at age 8 in his father’s band, Delton Broussard & the Lawtell Playboys. It was later in his teens when Jeffery joined his brother’s band, Clinton Broussard & the Zydeco Machines, that he began seriously playing the accordion.

At the heart of traditional zydeco music — an uptempo synthesis of blues, French and Afro-Caribbean influences powered mainly by accordion and frottoir (rubboard) -- is its authenticity. It’s a timeless style born from the struggles of the French-speaking Creoles living in generally poor, rural communities like Frilot Cove, where the Broussard family worked hard and long in the sharecropping fields. Tragedy struck when Jeffery’s mother died of cancer when Jeffery was thirteen. More recently, Jeffery’s brother Shelton died in a house fire about six years ago.

“All of my songs are based on true life experiences, both happy and sad,” said Broussard during a recent phone interview. “Some of it reflects the hard times and struggles that folks like us face every day but, at the same time, the music we play makes you happy and want to get up and dance. And we feed off that energy from the crowd. Zydeco music reaches everybody because we all want a release from our worries . . . so it travels anywhere and everywhere.”

Citing Clifton Chenier, Boozoo Chavis and his father as his greatest musical influences, Broussard says he is dedicated to preserving and promoting the Creole culture and tradition of zydeco music. Still, he agrees that the music will not survive unless each generation stretches the boundaries to contemporize it. Broussard’s previous band, Zydeco Force, was a key part of the Nouveau zydeco movement in the late-1990s, early-2000s that featured such innovative acts as Beau Jocque, Terrance Simien, Keith Frank, C.J. Chenier, Geno Delafose and Rosie Ledet. These acts infused zydeco with some spice by adding touches of youth, funk, soul, R&B, reggae and rock. (In fact, the free-wheeling Jocque – who sadly died of a heart attack in 1999 at the young age of 45 – pushed purists to their limit by flavoring his musical gumbo with funk bass, Peter Frampton-style talk-box guitar, and the occasional drum loop.)

Broussard, who is backed in the Creole Cowboys by bassist-fiddler D’Jalma Garnier III, guitarist Jim Scott, frottoir player Bernard Vonte Johnson and drummer Randy Jackson, understands that the best way to make his late-poppa proud is to carve out his own musical path with fresh detours.

“We play zydeco, Creole and Cajun all in one band, and that’s pretty unique,” Broussard declared. “I like playing a variety of things, from bluesy and jazzy to more exotic sounds and styles from West Africa and around the world. I’m here to tell you that you can play traditional and non-traditional zydeco . . . we need both or this wonderful music will eventually fade away.”

My only disappointment with this year’s line-up of performers is that Cajun music is represented by only a single group, the Acadien Cajun Band. Highlights from previous years included not only Cajun giants like Beausoleil and Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, but also the spotlighting of lesser-known gems such as the Magnolia Sisters, Pine Leaf Boys, Balfa Toujours and Walter Mouton and the Scott Playboys.

Still, musicologist-writer-musician Ann Savoy - a renowned expert on Cajun and Creole cultures who’s played here numerous times as a member of both the Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band and Magnolia Sisters - aptly summed up this long-running festival’s appeal during an interview years ago: “To be able to experience the real deal . . . these practitioners of traditional Cajun and zydeco who’ve travelled 1600 miles from Southwest Louisiana to play for a couple of days in Southern California . . . is indeed a rare treat.”

Enjoy la danse de la vie!

*Presented by Benoit Entertainment Group, the 2018 Long Beach Bayou Festival takes place Saturday and Sunday at Queen Mary Events Park, 1126 Queens Hwy., Long Beach; 562-912-4451. $25-$35 per day. Free general admission for children under 12 and all active duty Military personnel with ID. www.longbeachbayou.com. A portion of the profits will benefit LALA (Louisiana to Los Angeles), a non-profit organization which raises educational funds for local youth to attend college.